


The Ring

by just_another_classic



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 08:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5736841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_another_classic/pseuds/just_another_classic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometime between Killian draping the chain around her and the moment the world fell to pieces, Emma had imagined how her parents would react when they saw the ring that hung around her neck. Whatever she had imagined, it wasn't this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ring

Sometime between Killian draping the chain around her and the moment the world fell to pieces, Emma had imagined how her parents would react when they saw the ring that hung around her neck, the ring that was a promise, the one that wasn’t a proposal.

 

She would have to explain that part, how she wasn’t suddenly engaged and that there wasn’t a wedding to be planned.

 

(Or maybe there was, because in the brief moments between the flame lighting and Killian dying, she had begun to envision that very thing, a wedding and the house and the future that she so very wanted.)

 

She had pictured it clearly back then, how her mother would eye her and Killian warily after Emma’s disjointed explanation for how the ring was only meant to keep her safe, nothing more. (But it was so much more.) Her father would do that protective parent thing that he always did around Killian, chastise her pirate for not asking his permission to give his only daughter a ring – even if it wasn’t an engagement ring.

 

Would her parents have even believed her if she said there wasn’t an engagement?

 

Maybe…but maybe not. Her mother was the paragon of true love and hope, and maybe she would have would have saw through that explanation in a second, heard the unspoken “yet” after “we’re not engaged.” Because even unstated, that “yet” would be screaming and obvious to everyone around them.

 

(One of the many reasons why Emma had been scared, because when Killian had told her he wasn’t proposing, she was actually _disappointed.)_

 

Or, if her parents didn’t automatically not buy her “not engaged” story, the moment that Emma revealed that she would be moving out of the loft shortly after their return to Storybrooke surely would have tipped them off.

 

Now, that would have been a fun conversation. While Emma was pretty sure her mother had no qualms with the physical side of her and Killian’s relationship – and had even covered for her the few (many) times that she stayed overnight in his quarters – her father certainly liked to pretend that he lived in a fairy-tale where his daughter and her pirate boyfriend did nothing more than kiss.

 

Owning a home together would surely shatter those illusions.

 

Of course, there was also the possibility that her parents already knew of Killian’s plans with the ring and the house, and were just waiting for that wonderful moment to celebrate. Killian had seemingly already discussed his intentions with Henry. Adding her parents to the mix wouldn’t have been that much of a stretch. Killian was old-fashioned like that.

 

Then Killian was dead, and all of Emma’s illusions were shattered with one push of a blade.

 

His blood covered her fingers, its stain banded over where an engagement ring would have slid if she had allowed it.

 

“I would have said yes,” the voice in her head screamed, or maybe she had sobbed it aloud. She didn’t know, because everything that had been finite and real had been taken from her – him, his promises, their future.

 

When her parents saw the chained ring, it wasn’t during a victory celebration or over shared smiles and laughs. Instead, it was reveal to them in a moment of panic, when Emma had been unsure of its location, fearing it had been lost when the darkness was taken away, only to find it tangled in her jacket pocket.

 

Her explanation for its meaning wasn’t one for humor or sussing out the hidden truth.

 

(The only truth left was that Emma loved Killian and now he was gone.)

 

Instead she half-sobbed, half-screamed words that were supposed to mean something – he promised, a future, a pirate who loved her – praying that the disjoined statement somehow made sense because she no longer had the emotional strength to keep going on.

 

(This was supposed to be a happy moment.)

 

Her parents did not exchange conspiratorial glances, but shared looks of sorrow for not being able to save their daughter from this nightmare. They may have thought Emma succumbing to the darkness was their worst fear, but no, they were wrong. Heroics cannot salve this sort of pain, only time.

 

(Oh, how much Emma had fooled herself into believing that she and Killian had more time.)

 

Of all the things Emma had wished to share with her parents, it was not this. Though she had the house and the ring, the promise of the future was now something to be mourned. Because it was never about the ring or the house, but instead about the man who was supposed to be standing by her side, the pirate who loved her, and the one who died for her.

 

Killian was now gone, and all that was left was an empty house and a cold ring.

 

This was not what she imagined.


End file.
